How does diet affect ADHD - Research Paper Example

It is difficult for these children to control their behaviour. According to surveys, approximately 5 percent or more or less 2 million children in the US have this disorder. It is likely to have 1, in a classroom of 30 children, who has this disorder. (Feingold, 1975, p 8) Dr. Heinrich Hoffman, a physician who wrote a number of books about medicine and psychiatry, first described ADHD in 1845. Due to the scarcity of reading materials that suit his son, he became a poet and wrote a number of poems that describe the characteristics of different children. The story of Fidgety Philip was an exact description of a young boy who had ADHD. Children who face ADHD should be surrounded by people who can give guidance and understanding in order for the patients to cope with the daily endeavours of life. It is a difficult but not insurmountable task to deal with ADHD. Proper knowledge about the disorder should be acquired to be able to fully understand the behaviour of the children. (Barkley, 2010, p 27) How does diet affect ADHD 3 Feingold Diet In the 1970s, the chief emeritus of the Department of Allergy at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital, Dr. Benjamin Feingold, suggested a link between diet and a number of allergic conditions. Approximately 50 percent of Feingold’s hyperactive patients testified that they benefited from the food that do not contain artificial flavourings and colourings and some natural chemicals like salicylates that are found in apricots, tomatoes, berries and other food. (Feingold, 1979, p 72) But there are some experts in child behaviour and some pediatricians who were sceptical about this diet, many parents follow this. In some cases, many children were put on a diet that did not contain any food additives, artificial flavourings and colourings and afterwards challenged with dyes. In other cases, there were children who were monitored after switching to this kind of diet (dyes, egg, wheat, and some others) and then challenged with those foods. The result was not too consistent since there were others who were not seen with drastic effects, though there were some who experienced significant difference. (Silberberg, 2009, p 29) Sometime in 1982, the National Institute of Health (NIH) organized a compromise conference on different types of diets on hyperactivity disorder to review early research and inform the health professionals and the public. This is the reason behind there is no concrete diet that can be recommended to children who have ADHD today and instead, only avoidance of a few foods with contents that that found some effects on ADHD patients. How does diet affect ADHD 4 In addition, further studies should be done to find out if stimulant drugs have an effect on the nervous system and other part in the body in the future. Drugs like Ritalin and its sort were not recommended by the (Food and Drug Association (FDA) and medical professionals. The National Toxicology Program (NTP) has discovered that doses of Ritalin that exceeded, even just a small insignificant dose, can cause liver tumors in mice. This only means that those children who have taken this drug could be susceptible to its carcinogenic effects that could be noticed later in life. Although the NTP has considered the drug to have a weak carcinogenic potential, this remains a troubling issue to everyone. (Yan, 2007) Elimination Diet The food elimination diet makes the ...Show more